Prince & Dragonesses
by Kaesteranya
Summary: This is my dumping ground for all my drabbles, shorts and flash fiction pieces that I've written for Kurenai, a manga series in Jump Square recently made a TV series . Most of them will be introspective by nature.
1. By the window

**By the window.**

_I haven't gotten very far in the anime for this series and I haven't even started on the manga, so I can't be sure whether I'm reading Ginko right in this piece. Anyway, I hope it's okay in the long run. By the way, the title of the piece was taken from the 31 Days theme for April 19, 2007._

* * *

They had graduated from wasting the afternoon away in a sandbox or by the swings to special snippets of the day spent sitting across of each other at a desk meant for a single person, talking to tune of the quiet click of her fingers on the keyboard. Ginko Murakami was not like other girls her age – she had known that on her fifth birthday, when she had asked for a computer for Christmas when others would have wanted a puppy, or a pony. That said, she did not relate to boys the same way other girls did. Other girls batted their eyelashes, made bento with silly octopus-shaped sausages, and lowered their voices to an almost inaudible level because they believed that doing so was more befitting of a lady. As for Ginko, she was always and ever nothing but herself. In that light, she did not think she was being harsh with Shinkurou; she merely spoke her mind, and to hell with being "uncute" or "frigid". They had grown up together, and people who had grown up together could forgive each other almost anything. That was the sort of attitude she took towards that peculiar night job he had chosen, and ultimately the reason why she had started doing the things she did. In her eyes, it all came even between them.

Sometimes, Shinkurou would come around without any real agenda, and that always annoyed Ginko a little – they had nothing much to say to each other those days, and it was a waste of her time and his, especially his, especially since he still kept company with that indecent girl from the Yuuno House. The annoyance, however, always faded into something a little warmer and a lot more uncomfortable as they talked, or whenever he'd laugh or smile or give her this look that always made her think that he was semi-exasperated with her but too familiar with her reasons for acting the way she did to say it, or maybe it was just her pride telling her that. It would spike again on the rare times that he fell asleep on her, but she beat it down by telling herself that, idiot as he was, Shinkurou needed all the hours he could get. Ginko made it a point not to look up from her work during those points – the sight of him in the sunlight and the sound of his breathing were always a little too distracting for her.


	2. 11:59 PM

**11:59 PM**

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for April 28, 2008. There are mild spoilers for the fourth episode of the anime in this piece._

* * *

There were times when Kurenai Shinkurou almost wondered what the hell he was doing night in and night out, kicking the shit out of random people, occasionally getting the shit kicked out of him, stumbling (or dragging himself) home, wiping away the hours between midnight and sunrise with bloodstained cotton balls and antiseptic. He didn't particularly enjoy the job or the _idea_ of the job most of the time – the only things that kept him going were that shining image of a red-haired woman in white he had carried around in his heart since he was five years old, and, admittedly, the pay. The risk of injury and possibly death aside, being a dispute mediator wasn't too bad on the financial side of things. It was also a lot more exciting than delivering ramen, or playing courier, or directing traffic by roadside construction sites. Or so he told himself, when the weariness threatened to settle into his bones and bunch itself up in the small of his back, where it would throb and ache at the most inconvenient times.

His off days naturally came hand-in-hand with his off nights, when the sound of his fists or foot connecting to flesh or the bone-crushing solidity of a debilitating blow seemed too loud and too real for him to handle and he'd wake up the morning after feeling like someone had drawn gauze over his eyes and stuffed wax in his ears. On those, he wondered and almost asked himself why he had bothered, what might have Benika had come in time to keep that goon from pulling the trigger and ending it for real. Shinkurou didn't think it was particularly suicidal, these thoughts; it was just one of those things. Thankfully, a job always came in before Shinkurou could really, _really_ think about it, and things would go on as usual until the next 'bad moment'. The job to protect Kuhoin Murasaki had been one of those.

It was only later, much later, after he came to like the sound of Murasaki's small voice or smile at the sight of her dainty feet padding across the _tatami_ or down the street, that his bodyguard stint with her was so much more than a simple distraction, or a small assurance that maybe, he was doing things right.


End file.
